Unit 9B: Late Stage Cold War

Notes

• From 1949 to 1960, the Cold War escalated as a result of a nuclear arms face, space race, and espionage

• Dwight Eisenhower was elected president in 1952

• Brinkmanship: Threatening to use nuclear weapons and willingness to go to the brink of war

• Mutually Assisted Destruction (MAD)

• Fears of a nuclear attack and spread of communism led to a Red Scare in the late 1940’s-1950’s

• Loyalty Review Board was made to dismiss “disloyal” gov employees

• The House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) investigated suspected communists in the entertainment business and other industries

• Red Scare fears in America were heightened by the discovery of spies working for the USSR

  • State Department employee Alger Hiss was convicted of spying for the USSR

  • Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed for passing atomic bomb secrets to the USSR

  • in 1950 Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy emerged as the leaders of the anti-communist Red Scare

• In Response to the threat of a Soviet nuclear attack, Congress created the National Defense Highway act in 1956

• In 1956, the Soviet Union threatened expansion into the Middle East (Suez Crisis)

• President Eisenhower responded with the Eisenhower Doctrine

• in 1955, Khrushchev formed a communist alliance to rival NATO called the Warsaw Pact

• In 1957, the USSR used its first ICBM to launch Sputnik the first satellite into space

  • USA reacted by passing the national defense education act

• in 1958, the USA created national Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to catch up to the USSR

Dates

• 1952 - Dwight Eisenhower was elected president

• 1940’s-1950’s - Red Scare

• 1950 - McCarthyism

• 1956 - National Defense Highway Act

• 1955 - Warsaw Pact

• 1956 - Suez Crisis

• 1957 - Sputnik and National Defense Education Act

• 1958 - NASA is founded